Will Florida be within 5 points?

[Person Man]

Unless the Republicans nominate a right-wing version of George McGovern the Democrats have no way of winning Florida by more than 5%. Democrats would have to lose the nationwide popular vote by 3% for Florida to go that far Republican.

No?

Democrats won the national popular vote by 4.5%, but Trump won Florida by 3.6%

So, a Democrat who wins by 2% like Hillary did probably would lose Florida by 5%. That is like 52-47% so I can see that.

But Hillary didn't lose by 5, she lost by a little over 1. Your post assumes uniform swing from 2020 / equally weak Latino performance in 2024, which is not impossible, but seems like a bold assumption this far out.

The trends could reverse or they could accelerate. Either one is equally plausible. I'm skeptical of the sustainability of the continued growth of the Leisure Class in Florida and am skeptical that the COVID environment will be a permanent cultural fixture. However, local Democrats have been "hard to organize" for a very long and who knows how many more voters are stubborn Democrats in Republican-trending areas that will finally give in to peer pressure. Of course the big thing for Republicans, and its not just Cubans, is that a lot of the "ethnic/minority vote" are very aspirational in their voting.

[Person Man]

Unless the Republicans nominate a right-wing version of George McGovern the Democrats have no way of winning Florida by more than 5%. Democrats would have to lose the nationwide popular vote by 3% for Florida to go that far Republican.

No?

Democrats won the national popular vote by 4.5%, but Trump won Florida by 3.6%

So, a Democrat who wins by 2% like Hillary did probably would lose Florida by 5%. That is like 52-47% so I can see that.

But Hillary didn't lose by 5, she lost by a little over 1. Your post assumes uniform swing from 2020 / equally weak Latino performance in 2024, which is not impossible, but seems like a bold assumption this far out.

Hillary won the national popular vote by 2.1%. She lost Florida by 1.2%

Biden won the national popular vote by 4.5%. He lost Florida by 3.4%


In 2018, Democrats won the national popular vote by 8.6% and the GOP won Florida by 0.4%

In both 2018 and 2020, Florida was 7-8% more to the right to the nation as a whole

Following that trend, if a Democrat wins the national popular vote by 2-3% than the GOP will probably win by 5%. And that is assuming the Democrats even contest Florida

Yes, I understand the math behind uniform swing, thank you. This is not a novel concept. I'd suggest reading The Daily Beagle's post for a more interesting commentary on why the trends could continue, or even accelerate, but could also reverse. Lots of counterveiling factors that make it a lot more nuanced than "muh XYZ points to the left/right of NPV"

Then there’s the new minimum wage’s affects and there could be incumbency coming up.

[Person Man]

Yes. I'll even go so far as to say I'll be very surprised if it's not within 3 points. For now, I believe 2020 was an anomaly.

It's clear, though, that something has changed in Florida. For some reason, between 2016 and 2018, it went from consistently being about 3 points to the right of the nation to consistently being about 7 points to the right of the nation, and it's not really clear to me why.

Bc you’re a hack to you party? And you don’t want Florida to be a red state when it clearly is trending that way-fast.

Maybe. It was like 13 points to the right of the nation as recently as 1988. The reason I wouldn't give up on Florida yet as a Democrat is because

1) The isn't that much more room for the large conservative Leisure Class to grow that much more.
2) The lockdowns scared a lot of people in the tourism industry away from Democrats when Republicans offered to ignore he pandemic
3) We don't know how the new minimum wage will change the dynamics of the state. Maybe it will make it harder to support a large Leisure Class or change who employees people in the state.
4) On the local level, Democrats haven't really tried in Florida for a generation now. $100M over the course of 6 weeks isn't the same as $10M over the course of 6 months.

Then again, maybe Florida and Arizona/Georgia/Texas are switching places because

1) Immigration and Civil Rights aren't as big of issue to local minority communities as having an expansionist foreign policy or being "against socialism". Attitudes on things like abortion aren't as conservative as you think, however.
2) Maybe the COVID thing will be the reverse version of the Farm Crisis that only subsides over the course of 25+ years. In the 2020s and 2030s, Florida might be the unique conservative urban state the way Iowa was that weird liberal rural state.
3) Florida really isn't that "urban".
4) Some of Florida's minorities are miscategorized and many of them would pass as and otherwise consider themselves white except to maybe "own teh libz".